


Aftermath

by princetestified



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hope, M/M, Post-Chapter 143, Recovery, Survivor Guilt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, aftermath of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 23:56:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4119253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princetestified/pseuds/princetestified
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sometimes, he dreamed.<br/>In those dreams, he saw his beloved Kaneki, whole and smiling, not the broken white-haired boy he had last seen, but the black-haired young man, who was a devoted student and who blushed and laughed and cared so much it made him cry and who felt real fear and real emotions. While it was frequent for Tsukiyama to just pour his heart out to this illusion of Kaneki, there were the times where he saw someone other than Kaneki."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> first fic for Tokyo Ghoul! I've been in this fandom super hard for a long time now. not quite sure when I wrote this, either. ;; there might be some slight discrepancies, so please tell me!! enjoy.  
> (or not, this hurts a lot, especially for me.)

In the aftermath, Tsukiyama knew. He knew deep, deep inside that Kaneki – his beautiful, delicious, bittersweet Kaneki – had not survived.

Of course, when he was peeled off the rooftop and sent home, he threw an absolute fit. He screamed and he sobbed and he lashed out with kagune and fists and feet until his body gave out on him and he crumpled, slack and tear-stained, in Chie's arms. She simply did not understand, Chie; had she lost someone precious, perhaps she would have. But she had not. No, she had a family, people who she could confide in and people who could confide in her, who were well and breathing, who had heartbeats and names and voices and laughs and smiles.

Never again would he track Kaneki's heartbeat, speak his name, hear his voice, adore his laugh, cherish his smile.

All he had were pitiful memories and an ache in his entire body that would never go away.

Tsukiyama had never truly experienced loss until this point in his life. It was far, far too early (loss was always too early) and he wasn't prepared in the least. He'd begged and tried so hard, should have tried harder. If he had tried harder, Kaneki would be alive. If he had followed, Kaneki would be alive. If he had done something more, Kaneki would be alive. And even though the small bit of rationality left in him, though it continued to dwindle, knew that it was not his fault, it was largely overshadowed by this incredible guilt that burned Tsukiyama up from the inside out and consumed his very being. It was ironic, actually. His emotions were doing to him what he had done to so many others. Perhaps now that he had lost Kaneki, everything he lived and breathed for, he would be karmically clean.

Of course he wasn't, but it was nice to think about when he wasn't catatonic.

Kanae tended to him. He tried to coax him into eating or drinking, only managed to get coffee in him once in a blue moon, and Tsukiyama knew the boy mourned for the master he had lost. He wished he could reach out to him and give him the comfort he himself so desperately needed, but he knew that was not possible, just as it was not possible for anyone but Kaneki to soothe these raw and awful edges in his soul.

Sometimes, he dreamed.

In those dreams, he saw his beloved Kaneki, whole and smiling, not the broken white-haired boy he had last seen, but the black-haired young man, who was a devoted student and who blushed and laughed and cared so much it made him cry and who felt real fear and real emotions. While it was frequent for Tsukiyama to just pour his heart out to this illusion of Kaneki, there were the times where he saw someone other than Kaneki. Someone who looked very much like him, with black roots growing in over white and those mismatched eyes he loved so dearly. His voice was the same, if a little different, but it wasn't a difference like that between the two Kanekis he knew. He was never within reach, though, even less corporeal than his most desperate wishes. At least he could cry on those -- he could never do that with this strange Not-Kaneki.

Waking up from the dreams was always the worst, because the grief, the guilt, the anger, the misery, the pain all came crashing onto him, fresh wave upon fresh wave, never-ending and threatening to drown him. The more he dreamed, the harder it was to face consciousness; there were the occasions where Tsukiyama suffered panic attacks in the wake of coming back to reality. Before Kaneki, he had never experienced something so utterly jarring. It rattled him to his very core and only accelerated his sickness. He absolutely refused to call it depression, because you could never recover from depression; it stuck like an unsightly burr and never let you go, only went into a remission of sorts then reared its ugly head at the most inopportune times. You could recover from sickness. And the medicine that Shuu Tsukiyama needed was Ken Kaneki.

Though he knew at the beginning, he could never fully let go of that hope that somehow, miraculously, as Kaneki tended to do, he had emerged from that battle. The Not-Kaneki in his dreams only flared the meager flame that he nursed. He wanted Kaneki to come home, because Kaneki's home was Tsukiyama's – no, Kaneki was Tsukiyama's home.

Touka cradled that same kind of hope. He had heard her say it again and again, and he had foolishly started to believe her, but it was something to hold onto. She had experienced a great loss in the past, though Shuu would dare say it was not as great as this one. Still, they could work through it together, he and Touka. There was some kind of compromise between them, this truce they had forged in respect for Kaneki, and although she never so much as held his hand, her presence was enough to numb him. More often than not, they sat in silence, exchanging the words they had already spoken aloud several times, keeping up this tentative bond in order to save themselves. Perhaps it was selfish, but if it was, Shuu had never before been so grateful for his greedy nature.

At some point, he had stopped crying, and although he wondered where the ability to do so had gone, he wasn't entirely missing it. The tears were not any kind of release to him, just an overflow that didn't really matter, because by the time it had run its course, it had already been replaced. It did not get easier, it did not get better, it did not stop. Rather, as time passed, he grew more proficient in the art of numbing himself. Though it was not any more pleasant than the constant hurt, it was some kind of sick exchange – not feeling anything instead of always feeling everything. It got to the point that he never even registered physical pain, or the prickling of his eyes turning, or even the sheets against his skin. It was very strange. Sometimes, Shuu would ease himself out of his cocoon of not feeling by thinking of his favorite memories of Kaneki and simmering in them, and then he would live again. For those few, precious moments, he could experience emotion without hurting quite as badly.

Of course, it never truly went away.

During the snatches of time when he could sit up, Shuu thought some more. Sometimes, he wrote the things he pondered down. The first time that he did, he hugged the journal to his chest and cried again, sobbed brokenly until Kanae, spooked, took the leatherbound book away from him and laid him back down in bed. The dreams resurfaced, and, driven by a twisted desire, he dissolved into a cycle. He would force himself upright, would wade through memories and the fog in his head, would write down everything, would dissolve into screaming cries, would be coaxed into unconsciousness, would see Kaneki again.

Kaneki always fretted, always worried, always wiped the tears from his face, always had to keep blinking so his own watery eyes would not overflow. His favorite question to ask was "Why?" and Shuu could never give him a straight answer. When he addressed him as Tsukiyama-san, he had to stop him – no longer could he carry that kind of name. He was merely Shuu, for he could not bear an honorific or even the meager respect of his family name. Kaneki had been hesitant at first, but had obliged. He liked the sound of his given name, coming from Kaneki. He somehow managed to make it sound like it belonged to someone who mattered.

In the aftermath, Shuu knew. He knew deep, deep inside that Kaneki – his beautiful, doting, concerned, sweet Kaneki – had survived.


End file.
